Mysteries

Cases

• CaseVärend, Småland, Sweden, 1883 to 1889

  The lindworm reward in Småland was never claimed

  In May 1884 a former chargé d'affaires in Småland offered up to 1,000 crowns for a dead lindworm. A Växjö paper joked it had been found; nobody brought a snake.

  

• CaseEsquel and Epuyén, Chubut, Argentina, 1922

  How the Patagonian plesiosaur of 1922 got its name

  A hunter's letter to the Buenos Aires zoo never says plesiosaur. A headline did, and a party from the zoo went to his lagoon in April 1922 and found him gone.

  

• CaseShimoda, Izu, Japan, 1884 to 1891

  Kokkuri-san came ashore at Shimoda, or so Inoue Enryō heard

  In 1887 Inoue Enryō traced the kokkuri craze to an American ship at Shimoda, a story he dated to about 1884 in one book and about 1885 in the next.

  

• CaseBeijing, China, 1476 to 1477

  Heisheng, Beijing's black creature of 1476, and the Western Depot

  In June 1477 four ministers told the Chenghua emperor that his new Western Depot alarmed Beijing as a night creature had the summer before.

  

• CaseHermersdorf (Svobodné Heřmanice), Czechia, 1753 to 1768

  Hermersdorf's vampires were burned before Vienna sent a physician

  Maria Theresa's earliest letter we found on the Hermersdorf vampires is dated 8 February 1755, eight days after an executioner burned nineteen of the dead.

  

• CaseLucerne, Switzerland, 1420 to 2006

  The Lucerne dragon stone: a pledge, a charter and a CT scan

  In 1523 Lucerne's council certified a dragon's stone as a cure for plague. In 2006 a CT scan showed a painted clay ball.

  

• CaseAntananarivo, Madagascar, 1863 to 1864

  Ramanenjana, the dancing sickness of Madagascar, 1863

  In 1863 the court physician called the dancers of Antananarivo a real illness; the missionary beside the king called it pure deception.

  

• CaseGévaudan, France, 1764 to 1767

  The Beast of Gévaudan outlived the king’s wolf

  In 1765 the king's gunbearer shot a wolf, and the Gazette declared the Beast of Gévaudan dead. Five months later a new beast was killing in the same hills.

  

• CaseKisiljevo and Medveđa, Serbia, 1725 to 1732

  Plogojowitz and Paole: the vampire reports of 1725 and 1732

  In January 1732 Habsburg army surgeons had graves opened at Medveđa, cut the bodies open, and signed a report saying which dead were in a "vampire state".

  

• CaseTsavo River, Kenya, 1898

  The Tsavo man-eaters: 28 counted in 1907, 135 by 1925

  In 1907 Patterson wrote that the Tsavo lions ate 28 Indian workers. In 1925, when they went on show in Chicago, his figure was 135.

  

• CaseBedburg, near Cologne, Germany, 1589 to 1590

  The werewolf of Bedburg in the Cologne papers of 1589

  A London pamphlet of 1590 says the werewolf of Bedburg killed two pregnant women. No German text of 1589 mentions them, and no trial record has been found.